Writer: Grady Hendrix (Screenplay) Grady Hendrix, Ted Geoghegan (Story)
Starring: Rebecca Romijn, Arden Myrin, Hayley Griffith, Ruby Modine, AJ Bowen, Jordan Ladd, Jerry O’Connell
Plot: A pizza delivery girl at the end of her financial rope has to fight for her life – and her tips – when her last order of the night turns out to be high society Satanists in need of a virgin sacrifice.
Tagline – Sacrifices must be made
Runtime: 1 Hour 25 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Fun Horror
Story: Satanic Panic starts as Sam (Griffith) takes a new job as a pizza delivery girl, she gets to meet the colourful characters while delivering pizza, with one of her final drops being at Danica Ross (Romijn) residence, the same night she is looking to do a satanic ritual.
Sam becomes the target of their sacrifice, as they need a virgin to complete the ritual, only Sam is joined by Judi (Modine), Danica’s daughter in an attempt to escape the ritual.
Thoughts on Satanic Panic
Characters – Sam is a pizza delivery girl on her first day of the job, she is trying to learn how the system works with tips, which sees her unwittingly walk into a satanic ritual, where she must try and escape the followers trying to use her as the sacrifice for their devil. Danica Ross is the leader of the satanic cult, she does everything to make followers happy, which will include giving up her own daughter if that makes the devil happy, she remains calm even if things don’t go as followed. Judi is the daughter of Danica who is also being prepared for sacrifice, she will help guide Sam through trying to stay ahead of the worshippers, using her knowledge of the cult to hopefully lead them to freedom.
Performances – Hayley Griffith does well in the leading role of this film, with her performance showing us the pure confusion about being thrown into this world. Rebecca Romijn as the leader of the cult is great to watch, filling the screen with the pure confidence required in the film. Ruby Modine completes the main cast with a performance that does fill in most of the gaps for the audience.
Story – The story here follows an innocent pizza delivery girl that gets caught up in the middle of a night involving a satanic cult, that want to make her their latest victim in their attempt to summon a demon. The story shows how somebody’s life (Sam’s) can be turned upside down in one night, when they need to learn how to survive a cult in a big city that are worshipping the devil, showing us how the cult will do anything to get what they want, with their early stage magic. The story plays out over one night, which does show us just how the battle to survive will unfold, with just one main option to survive and will break some of the more traditional ideas of the cult movies, adding in plenty of over the top ritual ideas for kills.
Comedy/Horror – The comedy in the film comes from seeing how different character act through the night, be it Sam’s fighting back or the cult members reactions to certain things that happen, this does hold back the pure horror side of the film, with most horror moments looking to end in a laugh more than anything else.
Settings – The film uses the settings to show us just how the world is unfolding, we start in the everyday neighbourhoods, where Sam is working, but when she ends up in the high society end of town, that is where everything takes place for the chaos side of things.
Scene of the Movie – Drowning
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Not enough horror involved.
Final Thoughts – This is a fun horror that gets plenty of laughs, while not capturing enough scares, we have a strong cast who each get their moment to standout through the film.
Overall: Enjoyable Horror Comedy.